Yordan Alvarez

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by steamrollers

I had read that article and it was a good one. Since then Flaherty has went another 14 innings with 0 runs, 3 hits, 3 walks and 17 strikeouts. He would have finished the game today but they were cruising so they pulled him after dominating in Maddux fashion with only 69 pitches through 7.

Ok, great. You do understand that unlikely things can still occur, right? Especially in a small sample of data, like 14 innings? That still doesn't mean it's an accurate reflection of his talent level.

Originally Posted by steamrollers

Basically everything you said is why some live cards by the end of the year can be way off where their rating should be. "his ERA should be expected to regress" yet it kept going down as he kept dominating.

Again...small samples. You're basically saying you want players to get ratings boosts, from being the beneficiary of good luck. I would strongly disagree with that. Ratings should be based on skill.

Originally Posted by steamrollers

At some point the cold hard results should play a larger role as the season wears on and not predictor stats that think there should be a regression coming. The very numbers you use to state why Flaherty shouldn't be highly rated are basically the same as Verlander so if we just cherry pick a few numbers I suppose he should drop about 20 points. It can't be both ways.

I'm not cherry picking anything. Verlander DID also benefit from some good luck this year, I won't deny that. But he also pitched well all year, whereas Flaherty only pitched well half the year. Verlander produced significantly more WAR on the season and is accordingly rated higher. (Plus of couse being an established superstar, his projections started out much higher).

[steamrollers]

Originally Posted by chazzycat

Ok, great. You do understand that unlikely things can still occur, right? Especially in a small sample of data, like 14 innings? That still doesn't mean it's an accurate reflection of his talent level.


Again...small samples. You're basically saying you want players to get ratings boosts, from being the beneficiary of good luck. I would strongly disagree with that. Ratings should be based on skill.

I'm not cherry picking anything. Verlander DID also benefit from some good luck this year, I won't deny that. But he also pitched well all year, whereas Flaherty only pitched well half the year. Verlander produced significantly more WAR on the season and is accordingly rated higher. (Plus of couse being an established superstar, his projections started out much higher).

I am not even close to saying a player should be the beneficiary of good luck. I am saying they should be rewarded for actual real life results. And if it is luck that we go by he also played to some bad luck in the first half. I guess maybe I just was a little too impressed by the following results and thought he should be higher than an unusable silver card...


The first major league pitcher since 1915 to record at least 120 strikeouts while posting an ERA of 1.00 or better in the second half of a season.


Since 1885, became the third pitcher younger than 24 years old to post a season in which he tallied at least 230 strikeouts while permitting 55 or fewer walks to go along with an ERA of 2.75 or better. Joining Clayton Kershaw and Mark Prior. (This one takes the entire season into account, so despite a subpar first half he put up historical SEASON numbers)


And I don't remember the exact numbers that MLB Network showed but he had either the second or third best ERA after the break in MLB history depending on if Greg Maddux is included from the strike shortened season when he started way less games.


I guess they can fix the obvious massive error in his rating since he just won Pitcher of the Month yet again so they have another chance to give him a real elite card if they gave him another POTM card.

[chazzycat]

the big thing you seem to be missing is how the game models pitchers.

It uses a FIP model, not an ERA model. I totally agree with you that by ERA Jack Flaherty had an excellent amazing season, and especially the second half.

But if you look at the full season FIP numbers Flaherty was only the 15th best pitcher in MLB this season.

The ratings "stuff" "movement" and "control" correspond exactly with strikeouts, homers and walks. The same 3 inputs as FIP. So if you just look at FIP instead of ERA it goes a long way towards explaining my point of view.

[dancariaz]

I love FIP and I think it's the best single stat to judge a pitcher's performance. Two things it doesn't cover though: the ability to regularly create soft contact and pitcher's command. These two are pretty important when it comes to balls that are put in play and FIP is telling us nothing about those. Ricky Nolasco and Michael Pineda will forever be the prime examples that in some cases FIP can be pretty missleading.

[chazzycat]

I am not saying FIP is a perfect measurement, not at all. I am just saying it’s helpful to understand how the game works, because that’s how its pitcher model works. Regardless of the points you made with regards to real world baseball, pitchers do not have a BABIP rating in this game. That’s purely a hitting skill in game.

[dancariaz]

Got it

Some of this - like pitcher's command - would be hard to implement anyway. How would you measure that? I don't hink there's any stat (yet) that does that. Soft/hard contact and BABIP could be done but implementing it would probably alter some existing ratings and maybe open another can of worms. I'll leave it to the devs to figure that out once it's a part of the game

[Bagpipes5]

Originally Posted by raslavens

The fact that ZIPs so dominates his ratings despite his amazing real-life performance is a serious flaw in the game or the devs' judgment. How did ZIPs rate Treinen or Doolittle? Probably pretty good -- but then their real-life stats cratered and so did their PT ratings. Not a sufficient answer after several months of excellence from Alvarez.

Also, how about Yordan compared to his other rookie class colleagues. Vlad Jr. is a good example. Are we saying the reason Vlad Jr. started out as a 100 overall and dropped was due to ZIPs projection/performance and Yordan started out low and rose due to a low ZIPs and high performance? It makes sense up until you realize that the likely AL Rookie of the Year is still rated lower than his runner-up. That should be looked at (I swear I'm not being a homer )

[chazzycat]

Originally Posted by Bagpipes5

Are we saying the reason Vlad Jr. started out as a 100 overall and dropped was due to ZIPs projection/performance and Yordan started out low and rose due to a low ZIPs and high performance?

Yep. Vlad started out with MUCH higher baseline projections, because he tore up AAA pitching at the age of 19. Alvarez was 21 when he tore up AAA pitching. Projections use player aging curves for regression...so that 2 years age difference is huge.


Not saying I agree with the end result. Alvarez should be higher rated than Vlad right now. But I can see how it happened.